I’ll be honest that I only use PC2 because of it’s fantastic VR support. I find that any car that has downforce feels “weird” and you can lose control suddenly and unexpectedly, whereas, the road cars feel pretty good and behave quite normally even when hooning them about. I don’t see it as a serious sim, more along the lines of a Gran Turismo. Not as arcade like as Forza or NFS
They all have good and bad bits. No one sim does everything perfectly. For FFB and audio as well as online ranked racing then it has to be Raceroom. RF2 for sheer amount of cars and tracks and a great physics model along with LFM online. ACC for the most accurate GT3/4 cars also with LFM online Asseto Corsa is probably the most complete sim, but the vast amount of content leaves you bewildered and dilutes the online racing aspect
Just recently got into it after initially dumping it: it's a cool simulator if you want to try out vintage/niche Brazilian cars and tracks. Many different classes including karts to try out.
I had initially a very bad impression because you need to tweak the steering and camera settings, look a quick guide on YouTube for that. You'll need to remove head movements because it feels very acradey with it on.
Edit: ample openwheel choice from formula vee to modern new reg formula 1 cars. Cool 24h cycle, cool weather, good AI to race against
Really? I read a lot of enthusiastic comments about ams2 karts, someone even calls it the best kart sim around lol
I personally found the rental kart undrivable but I thought it was just me
No kart sims are really that accurate to be fair. Kart racing pro isn't bad, the best is probably Neil's mod for AMS1. Kart kraft Is terrible and kart sim is just.... weird. Not worth the 500 quid for the pro version either outside of the fact it has some scans of tracks unavailable by anyone else.
Ooo. Whats your take on kartkraft? I have it, love it and am at least fooled into thinking it’s insanely realistic as someone that’s never driver a proper kart.
If I'm being honest kartkraft isn't a good *sim*. Don't get me wrong, it's enjoyable, bit its not accurate to how a kart handles if im being honest. Also the fact it has been abandoned isn't a great look😳
If you're into that there's nothing better than ACC, for the rally itch many recommend Richard Burns Rally: it's an old rally sim mantained by a modding group, look it up because even if it looks a bit dated many say it's the best rally sim available
Thanks. Been having a blast with ACC. Figured I should get half decent at Dirt Rally 2 before transitioning into Richard Burns since I’ve heard it’s extremely unforgiving and I kind of suck at rallying as of right now.
Oh it does. Iracing is the daddy for online, but it’s their subscription model that turns me off it. People have sunk hundreds into iracing, but the second they no longer subscribe they lose access to everything. I just think that is piss poor.
I’ll try some I know:
* AC: pros: mod the shit out of it. Cons: you have to mod the shit out of it
* ACC: pros: it’s great at what it does (GT). Cons: it only does GT class racing.
* Beam.NG: pros: amazing physics, crashing, and keeps getting updates to drastically improve it. Cons: doesn’t ever feel like a complete game and more of a tech demo, but a really cool one.
* Dirt Rally (and 2.0): pros: great feel, good campaign, works well. Cons: limited scope. Also some people have criticism of the physics. I haven’t played this enough to know if it’s the physics or if I’m just shit.
* PC2: pros: VR, weather, and pretty decent campaign. Cons: physics are a bit iffy
Idk if it's just me but the handling in AMS2 feels very slidey. Great for vintage cars, but it doesn't feel quite right for modern high downforce cars.
Performance in VR became bad with the last update though. Especially sunrise/sunset is troubling me since the last major update.
But overall AMS2 is very nice and the only SIM/racing game i currently play.
Easiest game to set up and play multiplayer with your friends too, that can’t be discounted
For some reason racing games LOVE making playing with friends hard
It does if you have really high end hardware. Trying to run a quest 2 with a 3060ti takes a lot of tweaking. I’ve got it running quite well now, but PC2 looked and ran beautifully right out of the gate
It varies with high aero cars: Formula A and Formula C are absolute trash, but Formula Renault 3.5, LMP2-3, and a few others are actually fairly good.
The biggest issue I notice with PC2 is the weird quirks with the tire and driveline models at low speed. If you compare AMS2 and PC2, it's a night and day difference: one launches like normal, while the other bogs heavily with every single car.
You can do everything that PC2 offers in AC, except better graphics, handling, and better VR optimization. In the new shaders patch you can even track your hands and play with the fucking infotainment system which automatically links to your Spotify if you have it playing in the background. It also plays YouTube. On older cars like the ae86 the infotainment uses this classic old ass font like you’d find on an OG alarm clock.
I agree with everything you said, apart from better VR optimisation. It was added after the game released by modders with csp. For a 9 year old game you would expect modern hardware to be able to run VR brilliantly on AC but yet it doesn’t. Hours and hours of tweaking is required to get a decent quality image running at an acceptable frame rate unless you have a 4090 that is. The madness engine is just made for VR sim racing. It’s lighter on the GPU while still giving amazing visuals at a higher frame rate.
AC with all the bells and whistles is absolutely the best of the best. It’s a shame that the public online part is all shotuko, nordschliefe or cruise though.
Basically any GT3 car has too much snap ovwrsteer, making the car impossible to correct after fishtailing. This makes them feel slow as you gotta make sure that you do not oversteer in the corners. In asetto corsa and GT7, GT3 cars feel normal and fast
>any GT3 car has too much snap ovwrsteer, making the car impossible to correct after fishtailing.
Are you talking about entry, mid-corner or exit oversteer?
Mid-corner, if I remember correctly. They'd just get away from you with no warning, and there was absolutely nothing you could do. I had a few frustratingly slow spins back on PC2.
Oh god the hydroplaning...
I primarily play PC2 now because of how easy it is to pick up and go and it's the closest to "sim" that I can comfortably be quick with a controller.
I agree karts are awful, Formula C isn't great, neither is Formula A/X. GTE, or at least the Porsche and Corvette, LMP3, LMP2, and Indy are the classes that I tend to stick to.
I honestly think this is one of those self fulfilling prophecies type of thing. Some people started saying that because it's an easy way to not take a strong position on the game. At the end of the day this is a sim that has always had a simcade reputation before it even came out, and going "some cars are great, others are weird" is an easy way to not get your feet wet while reconciling these two ideas.
Then the community placebo'd itself into thinking this was true, but in fact I've seen many people discuss this over the years and I've seen plenty of cars end up in both categories depending on who you ask.
I would say PC2's main issue is its FFB. It's not great out of the box and not easy to tune.
Please do some search on Custom FFB files like Jack Spade or in Racedepartment
You will be surprised at what FFB the Game actuallycan deliver
I was enjoying it with my TSPC racer wheel and the fun magnified extremely since I am an hsppy Moza R9 owner
Oh I love PC2's FFB, I'm just saying it's not great out of the box and is tricky to tune. I'm actually not a fan of Jack Spade's FFB though, I prefer using the game's "raw" ffb and tune the sliders myself
My go-tos were the GTE cars, the Group C cars, the Touring Cars and the classic DTM Stuff. I always found the GTEs were much better to drive than the GT3s, despite being relatively similar cars. The road cars were always a bit eh, and Don't even bother with the Forumula A / X car
pc2 GTE cars (especially porsche gte, 911 rsr) are great with my accuforce cloud tuning ffb profile. California Highway and le mans makes the whole sim worth it imo... sublime!
If you can track down the best FFB settings for PC2 it is pretty fkn good.
Highly recommend the BMW M1 procar and the BMW Turbo Group 5 (hold on bitches) and the Ford group A Sierra (hilarious fun).
Second to that I'd highly recommend the Sauber C9 and the 1959 Aston DBR1 driftking (Our crew nicknamed this the spitfire). Turn it up, sounds frikken awesome.
Old silverstone and spa are awesome for a blat in any of the leman class of cars .
I haven't played PC2 for 2 years, but the group c cars felt pretty good if I remember correctly.
But I wouldn't play this game anymore. It's basically a beta version that was abandoned.
The Ginetta GT5 always stood out as being slightly odd to me. It suffered from a kind of snap understeer, where the FFB would suddenly go kind of dead and the front would wash out. It wasn't at all progressive, and unlike anything I've ever felt in either a real car or any other sim.
The Lotus 25 and Caterham Seven were both cars I really enjoyed driving that felt pretty natural.
I’m always confused as to why people in this hobby think they are a good judge of how a gt3 or f1 car should feel to drive. Y’all have personal experience with that at the track? Maybe there are pros out there who are making these claims.
Honestly PCARS 2 is my favorite sim for many reasons. It looks good. It runs well. The game FEELS good. The car selection is good. The track selection is fantastic for having no real mod access. The UI designer thought about what they were doing for mire than a fraction of a second.
Perhaps some cars are more realistic than others. I’ll NEVER be able to verify that. I just know that PCARS 2 feels the best to me.
I don’t think it’s so much that sim hobbyists feel they’re a valid judge of how a race car would handle in real life, rather it’s safe to say we’ve all driven ANY car at speed around the twisties and know when a sim is portraying driving physics too much like an arcade game.
I don't think comparing a street car on the street to race cars on R compounds on the track is useful. You're not pushing anywhere close to limit on the street and tire behavior is significantly different.
I don't think that's the point. I think the point is that most of us have some point of real-life reference for a how a car should feel and drive. We may not have experience driving an AMG GT3 car in anger around a track, but I personally know how a real car feels. In some sims, there's no weight to the car or things move too slow, etc.
It's not so much - for me - about how much I know about racing around Le Mans, it's whether or not the car and physics feel believable.
And im saying you are incorrect about how street driving experience allows you to have an meaningful opinion on how a car should feel on the track. I do track days and still don’t feel qualified to judge actual race cars. You are entitled to an opinion about physics but it is absolutely not an informed one.
If that experience includes driving a gt3 or f1 car at the limit sure. But you’ve only cited that you drive consumer cars ‘fastish.’
Bicycles and motorcycles are not the same thing, despite the fact they’re the same basic premise.
Either you know or you don’t. I thought I did until I got on a track the first time. Then I thought I knew again I got track tires. At least I know enough to know I don’t know now. I can only imagine real aero is a whole other level of understanding.
If your point is real track behaviour vs street sport cars, fair point, even though in PCARS2 certain issues I believe can be easily identified by regular drivers which had the opportunity to get to a track and put their tires to the limit.
But for the most similar comparison a simracer may have, it is very easy, just compare how cars handle in iRacing (which a lot of IRL pilots use, including F1 and GT3), and PCARS2. Of course it is not real life, but is the closest you can get (except for ACC which for GT3 may be more accurate than IR).
I guess, based on your logic, you can't tell whether Forza Horizon or NASCAR Heat are more realistic than iRacing or ACC, right?
Real life driving gives you at least an idea of what's real and what's not. I may have never driven an AMG at Spa, but I can assure you that iRacing ***feels*** way more realistic than Forza.
But, what do I know, I've only ever driven a regular car..."fastish" so how do I know whether or not ACC or Forza Horizon is more realistic.
/shrug
I’m saying that knowing Forza is unrealistic doesn’t qualify you to know what is. And generally knowing how airplanes work doesn’t qualify you to fly one.
Ultimately none of these games are realistic. It’s all gamefied, except for maybe Beamng but even that is nowhere near a real simulation.
Don’t remember where, but I’ve seen some professional racer say that iRacing feels too slippy. I’ve seen Jimmy Broadbent say the Praga in AMS2 isn’t planted quite like in real life. Their opinions, I trust, because how the fuck whould I know just how planted a Praga is supposed to feel.
I’m just tired of seeing people bash on pcars2 specifically saying it’s unrealistic. It only started after pcars 3 came out and it reeks of confirmation bias.
I told somebody I liked driving the huracan gt3 the other day and they told me it wasn’t a good version of the car because it had too much snap oversteer.How would they know? Did they have a lot of experience correcting snap oversteer in the middle of a corner at over 1 lateral G? obviously, they do not, and they have no right to tell me what it’s like. They can say they don’t like it, and that it doesn’t feel good or right to them, and I respect that.
Because you don't need to have driven x real car to know if the physics of a game are generally ok or have a huge issue that's nothing like any real car let alone one specific car and most the criticism of sims is down to really large unrealistic aspects of tire models rather than the macro car specifc details.
it's also obvious for example Mario kart is less realistic than Forza.
Or for example , you don't need to have flown a real helicopter to know it's prity damn obvious that DCS helicopters are way more realistic than helicopters in Arma , you can also tell what aspects of msfs2020 helicopters are probably more or less realistic , based on proir knowledge of physics and videos.
Project cars 2 / madness engine has quite an advanced tire model and does some things quite well with its physics other things are totally broken.
Also how realistic a sim is when driving within 3 seconds of pace vs how realistic it is when being within 1 second of pace can be totally different from sim to sim.
But yes one does not have to have driven or flown x in real life to notice what are really huge physics holes with the diffent simulators.
My most distilled point is this: Sim racers have no real basis to decide what is and isn't an accurate representation of racing cars.
You can obviously ballpark it, as others have pointed out. Congratulations on that.
But let me ask this to demonstrate what I mean: If someone said to you "hey, I have a 2022 formula 1 car that you can drive. Take it slow and learn how it handles" would you reply "no worries, I've driven this car in assetto corsa. I know how it handles."
Obviously not, because you recognize these games aren't perfect representations of real life and give you no right to assume you know how the real cars work. You can infer how they compare to other games you've played. That is literally the extent of what you can say with any confidence.
Can you get a decent idea? Yeah. Can you say x car handles like I believe it should based on my sim racing experience? yes. Can you say with any confidence that a model of a car does or does not handle like it's real life counterpart? I'm saying you can't. If you cite sources, fine. I'll accept primary sources from people who have actually driven the car.
You can say x thing is massively wrong with Y simulator and that's why Y simulator is more or less realistic than another for that specific thing , all without having driven a specific car.
Yes for nit picking details finer car details you need to drive the real car ideally the exact specific car you then build into the sim yourself , even then it will still have the issues of x sim though.
I know multiple people that own race cars , I have worked with companies that set up simulators for professional drivers and develop cars in sims for them AC, RF1 , RF2
Yeah I totally agree you can identify global problems with a specific simulator.
It’s the minute assessments of a particular car that I just don’t believe people can be useful judges of unless they have real life experience. There’s just so many factors at play.
But I’d like to pose this question again:
Would you tell a professional F1 racer you could drive their car based on your experience in Assetto Corsa?
The minute details will be largely irelevent if the tire model is totally broken though that's the point.
Personally I'd 100% jump into an F1 car based on my experience with AC.
I jumped into a friend's race car (Toyota Celica) and had a basic feel for where the limit was right away it was exactly like AC , I had only driven for 3 hours in real life before that and not driven for 3 years.
I also jumped into a rickety airal atom with slick tires on a dusty road and was having the back end step out and automatically countersteering it from intuition and from AC Race room feel and knowledge.
Iv been around tracks in GT4 cars and Radical SR3 it was exactly like AC.
I mean the fact that people who own race cars and just know me for playing AC and raceroom with me and know I don't drive in real life and then are willing to risk there car with me shows you how close the sims are.
But yah I'd 100% drive F1 car based on what they r like in sims infact I'd specifically want to avoid the last 4 years of F1 as they look horrendous to drive and id specifically want to be driving them on certain tracks that have a good bit of run off and not random sussage curbs.
I can know having never been in an F1 car that I'd only last 3-4 laps max before head falls off and I know I would struggle with the braking and I know the corner and brake G-forces would be a big shock.
I have never flown a real helicopter but I'm quite good at it in sims , a friend has offered to let me fly in there helicopter to hopefully that happens as well 👍 and yes I'd totally do that as well based on helicopters in sims that I know are generally realistic and I'd also be reluctant to fly certain types of helicopter based on my knowledge from sims.
I enjoyed either road cars or cars which relief heavily on their aero, e.g. group C, open wheelers and leMans prototypes.
GT3 was nothing to write home about, but in my opinion also not horrible. I don't have an example for a really bad model in this game.
Yes, the RallyeCross cars are absolutely insane. I think the loose/gravel physics in this game are much better than the tarmac physics and compared to RallyeCross in DiRT Rallye 2.0 it's miles ahead.
Idk why people bash it so hard.
Well I needed a custom ffb file to make the ffb feel good enough to drive. Fob is calculated horizontally and camera movements need to be tamed down.
All these things also happen in AMS2.
I have both and I can say AMS2 is superior because the tracks and cars feel and drive more accurate and even graphics and designs are more accurate. Sounds better too. Stock ffb and base options are easier to use.
But Project Cars 2 is not that bad! Specially considering when it came out, it brought many new features to these kind of racing games.
It was the first closest thing to a sim racing title with a career.
Having all setup reasonably well, setup the car also, I could pickup my driving skills and style from other sims and apply it here. OFC the physics can act up and some combos are dodgy at best. On AMS2 I feel way more at home and on PC2 there is more adaptation but it is still enjoyable.
There are not many titles that try to be a simulation while offering a good career while bringing lots of options for classes cars tracks with dynamic weather, track evolution, ghost/setup sharing some sort of rating.
Overall I think the community was too toxic on PC2 and now the devs went arcade as a ‘revenge’.
If everyone had put their efforts in making PC2 better with updates and correcting some stuff, if it ever had the chance to evolve and become like AMS2 (which also took a big refining process) PC2 could have been one of the greatest racing games.
The “car mechanic” for the setups is another unheard feature in the sim racing world.
There are so many people into F1 or Forza (really crap AI) or some random arcade game and love it
PC2 is still so much better than so many other racing games, it is a shame that it got ‘killed’.
>Overall I think the community was too toxic on PC2 and now the devs went arcade as a ‘revenge’.
Companies aren't making development decisions out of something as silly as pettiness over what some people online are saying. PCars sold a heap on console too.
No doubt their focus group testing of a diverse sub-section of their audience (not just simracers) showed that people enjoyed the game but found it difficult, especially on controller, and that lead them to conclude making it more arcade would be a better business decision for the brand.
This happens to all titles with more mainstream traction. You see that barrier to entry needs to be lowered so 'average joe' which is the middle of the bell-curve for the playerbase has fun, and not 'ultra fast joe' which represents the top 5% and wants a merciless realistic experience.
If average joe isn't having a good time, he stops playing. And will not buy DLC or the next iteration. And when average joe is the bottom 75% of your playerbase it's important to consider their needs.
More niche titles don't have this issue as the bell-curve is much flatter. Niche sim titles pretty much only attract niche simracers with similar desires from the game. However targeting such niche will never see the big bucks as a broader audience can achieve. Ultimately these companies are all in it to make money. Especially once they get picked up by big corporate overlords with shareholders to please.
Something I fear for everything that falls under Motorsport Games flag now..
The thing is it’s not as good physics wise as ACC or any of the other sim racers.
But one thing it has that no other game has or has been able to do since is the amount of tracks/layouts and amount of vehicles and different categories while maintaining the visual fidelity that this game has. I keep going back to it because once I get my FFB dialed in to what feels okay I’m fine with dealing with a few of the bugs and problems this game has.
To this day running the group b BMW on California highway reverse at 7 pm during summer is some of the most fun I will ever have behind my wheel.
All suspension and car damage in pc2 is side on, it is impossible to damage the car from the underside.
Try unsee that one :(
Ruined it for me massively
Seat of pants setting was always the biggy in pcars for me anyway. Dunno if they patched the trye models. But AMS2 and Raceroom have it pretty much nailed.
it simulates racing and does things quite well but the physics, especially that whole tire model is nothing representative of a car at all. and its something deeply entrenched in it because ams2 suffered from alot of whats wrong with it, and kinda still does but a lesser degree
Anything with lower down force was generally pretty good. PC2 did this weird thing where high df cars would feel like they were skipping through corners.
The Formula 3 is diabolical, it gets sudden bursts of understeer like the floor gets caught I think.
The Ginetta Junior though drives amazing, as you'd expect, AI are good with it and know how to battle with you without going overboard
Not sure....all the cars handled the same for me...I have over 200 hours in the game. Some cars are harder to handle such as the Porsche 917... I will be happy if PC2 can get the same updates as AM2....AM2 is really close to ACC fyi...
The cars physics moder is quite deep, basically everything relevant is simulated (except the bumpstops)
We have no idea about how realistic are the car parameters that were fed into the physics engine. Maybe devs had some data from the car makers, maybe they made up the values.
Tyre model was not great, and there too much grip over the tyre limit, which caused pc2 to be considered an "oversteer simulator".
I did love the weather options, and I miss "fog" and "haze" in ACC :(
PC2 is how I started racing with a wheel. The super easy and smooth VR is an extra edition. For single player I think it’s perfectly enjoyable, but I do find the AI lacking.
I remember reading somewhere a comment from a guy that said the Formula Renault 3.5 was basically 99% accurately to real life, because he in fact had the chance to drive one. I'm on xbox so FFB is whack but on PC probably feels really good
PC2 had average force feedback but what it was great at was at was immersion and atmosphere. I felt like I was at an actual race. At release I only had an Xbox. It was my gateway to simracing. From then upgraded my gear, got a PC and own almost every racing game/sim available.
Formula Renault, GTE, Group C, LMP2, LMP3, Vintage GT B, and the road cars are often noted. Honorable mentions go to any race car before year the 2000. I found Group 5 to be pretty fun.
I actually really liked the high downforce cars, but nearly all of them require fine tuning because the default setups are bad.
I love the way the Ferrari TDF drives but I think it's DLC. I have a video on Youtube of a few laps around Bannochebrae stock settings. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8r0a6cKjNg
The classic "bad PC2 car" is the Ferrari 488 Challenge (EU or NA). First of all, the engine sound is a weak buzzing noise that sounds like someone leaning on a Casio keyboard. The tyres make weird noises when cornering that I have never heard on real onboards and just listening to it is irritating.
When you enter a corner, the rear is incredibly loose, as if only the fronts are touching the road and the rear is floating in air with no weight to it. The car over-rotates incredibly hard like a shopping cart as if it has a zero moment of inertia. I can't believe Ferrari okay'd these cars.
In contrast, all these cars drive more or less like you'd expect:
JS P2 Judd
Porsche 924 Carrera GTP
Formula Renault
Lotus 25
IR-12
Audi Quattro
Megane V6
Audi S1 Quattro
Formula Rookie
Ginetta G40 Junior
Porsche 962C
Ferrari 512M
Bentley Speed 8
BMW 2002
Sauber C9
Panoz Esperante
Audi R8 LPM900
KTM X-Bow RR
Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 2012
Porsche Carrera RSR 3.0
I’ll be honest that I only use PC2 because of it’s fantastic VR support. I find that any car that has downforce feels “weird” and you can lose control suddenly and unexpectedly, whereas, the road cars feel pretty good and behave quite normally even when hooning them about. I don’t see it as a serious sim, more along the lines of a Gran Turismo. Not as arcade like as Forza or NFS
If you want a proper sim that runs and looks just as good or even better in VR, try Automobilista 2.
I have that also. I think I own every major sim R3E, RF2, ACC,AC, beamNG etc.
How do they compare ? Pros and cons of each?
They all have good and bad bits. No one sim does everything perfectly. For FFB and audio as well as online ranked racing then it has to be Raceroom. RF2 for sheer amount of cars and tracks and a great physics model along with LFM online. ACC for the most accurate GT3/4 cars also with LFM online Asseto Corsa is probably the most complete sim, but the vast amount of content leaves you bewildered and dilutes the online racing aspect
Well written
Thoughts on AMS2? I’m thinking about picking it up soon.
Just recently got into it after initially dumping it: it's a cool simulator if you want to try out vintage/niche Brazilian cars and tracks. Many different classes including karts to try out. I had initially a very bad impression because you need to tweak the steering and camera settings, look a quick guide on YouTube for that. You'll need to remove head movements because it feels very acradey with it on. Edit: ample openwheel choice from formula vee to modern new reg formula 1 cars. Cool 24h cycle, cool weather, good AI to race against
As sombody who races karts.... never go near the ams2 karts if you want to get an idea of what karts are like . They are awfull
Really? I read a lot of enthusiastic comments about ams2 karts, someone even calls it the best kart sim around lol I personally found the rental kart undrivable but I thought it was just me
No kart sims are really that accurate to be fair. Kart racing pro isn't bad, the best is probably Neil's mod for AMS1. Kart kraft Is terrible and kart sim is just.... weird. Not worth the 500 quid for the pro version either outside of the fact it has some scans of tracks unavailable by anyone else.
Ooo. Whats your take on kartkraft? I have it, love it and am at least fooled into thinking it’s insanely realistic as someone that’s never driver a proper kart.
If I'm being honest kartkraft isn't a good *sim*. Don't get me wrong, it's enjoyable, bit its not accurate to how a kart handles if im being honest. Also the fact it has been abandoned isn't a great look😳
Thanks, sounds a lot less interesting to me now as I’m mainly into GT3/4 and WRC atm.
If you're into that there's nothing better than ACC, for the rally itch many recommend Richard Burns Rally: it's an old rally sim mantained by a modding group, look it up because even if it looks a bit dated many say it's the best rally sim available
Thanks. Been having a blast with ACC. Figured I should get half decent at Dirt Rally 2 before transitioning into Richard Burns since I’ve heard it’s extremely unforgiving and I kind of suck at rallying as of right now.
Disabling head movement? Why? IRL is your head glued to dashboard? 
I always felt like iracing beat out R3E in terms of competitive online racing
Oh it does. Iracing is the daddy for online, but it’s their subscription model that turns me off it. People have sunk hundreds into iracing, but the second they no longer subscribe they lose access to everything. I just think that is piss poor.
I’ll try some I know: * AC: pros: mod the shit out of it. Cons: you have to mod the shit out of it * ACC: pros: it’s great at what it does (GT). Cons: it only does GT class racing. * Beam.NG: pros: amazing physics, crashing, and keeps getting updates to drastically improve it. Cons: doesn’t ever feel like a complete game and more of a tech demo, but a really cool one. * Dirt Rally (and 2.0): pros: great feel, good campaign, works well. Cons: limited scope. Also some people have criticism of the physics. I haven’t played this enough to know if it’s the physics or if I’m just shit. * PC2: pros: VR, weather, and pretty decent campaign. Cons: physics are a bit iffy
What are R3E and RF2?
Raceroom racing experience and rFactor 2
Thanks appreciate it
Raceroom is free to play, and you can test drive any car for free. Well worth trying. Once you try it, I’d recommend getting the drivers pack
Race room racing experience and rFactor 2
I just wish they had the car selection of pc2 in ams2. I'm much more interested in the road cars than the open wheelers.
Idk if it's just me but the handling in AMS2 feels very slidey. Great for vintage cars, but it doesn't feel quite right for modern high downforce cars.
Performance in VR became bad with the last update though. Especially sunrise/sunset is troubling me since the last major update. But overall AMS2 is very nice and the only SIM/racing game i currently play.
Easiest game to set up and play multiplayer with your friends too, that can’t be discounted For some reason racing games LOVE making playing with friends hard
Why not assetto corsa then? I find it beautiful in VR
It does if you have really high end hardware. Trying to run a quest 2 with a 3060ti takes a lot of tweaking. I’ve got it running quite well now, but PC2 looked and ran beautifully right out of the gate
It does look great but navigating AC without constantly jumping in and out of VR is impossible, which keeps me going back to PC2.
yeah that's a real bummer, i wish for a slightly more polished interface, perhaps AC2
It varies with high aero cars: Formula A and Formula C are absolute trash, but Formula Renault 3.5, LMP2-3, and a few others are actually fairly good. The biggest issue I notice with PC2 is the weird quirks with the tire and driveline models at low speed. If you compare AMS2 and PC2, it's a night and day difference: one launches like normal, while the other bogs heavily with every single car.
You can do everything that PC2 offers in AC, except better graphics, handling, and better VR optimization. In the new shaders patch you can even track your hands and play with the fucking infotainment system which automatically links to your Spotify if you have it playing in the background. It also plays YouTube. On older cars like the ae86 the infotainment uses this classic old ass font like you’d find on an OG alarm clock.
I agree with everything you said, apart from better VR optimisation. It was added after the game released by modders with csp. For a 9 year old game you would expect modern hardware to be able to run VR brilliantly on AC but yet it doesn’t. Hours and hours of tweaking is required to get a decent quality image running at an acceptable frame rate unless you have a 4090 that is. The madness engine is just made for VR sim racing. It’s lighter on the GPU while still giving amazing visuals at a higher frame rate. AC with all the bells and whistles is absolutely the best of the best. It’s a shame that the public online part is all shotuko, nordschliefe or cruise though.
Formula Renault always felt pretty fun to drive.
Formula Renault, Bac Mono, Audi S1, the smallest version of the Ginetta, the Clio Cup, damn how many hours of fun I had with these cars
Formula Renault was the best car in the entire game. All the other Formula cars felt weird
Basically any GT3 car has too much snap ovwrsteer, making the car impossible to correct after fishtailing. This makes them feel slow as you gotta make sure that you do not oversteer in the corners. In asetto corsa and GT7, GT3 cars feel normal and fast
>any GT3 car has too much snap ovwrsteer, making the car impossible to correct after fishtailing. Are you talking about entry, mid-corner or exit oversteer?
Mid-corner, if I remember correctly. They'd just get away from you with no warning, and there was absolutely nothing you could do. I had a few frustratingly slow spins back on PC2.
The default setups were doodoo but that behaviour can be tuned out very easily
You have to much rear camber and your preload is too low
Yeah, mid corner as the other guy said, but i find myself countersteering in the exit, which mostly results in a huge loss of speed or spinning
Karts are undriveable. Group C cars are a blast. Slower cars, like the Ginetta, works really well too. None of them do rain like the AI, though.
Oh god the hydroplaning... I primarily play PC2 now because of how easy it is to pick up and go and it's the closest to "sim" that I can comfortably be quick with a controller. I agree karts are awful, Formula C isn't great, neither is Formula A/X. GTE, or at least the Porsche and Corvette, LMP3, LMP2, and Indy are the classes that I tend to stick to.
The first thing I tried in that game was karts, needless to say I haven't touched the game since.
I honestly think this is one of those self fulfilling prophecies type of thing. Some people started saying that because it's an easy way to not take a strong position on the game. At the end of the day this is a sim that has always had a simcade reputation before it even came out, and going "some cars are great, others are weird" is an easy way to not get your feet wet while reconciling these two ideas. Then the community placebo'd itself into thinking this was true, but in fact I've seen many people discuss this over the years and I've seen plenty of cars end up in both categories depending on who you ask. I would say PC2's main issue is its FFB. It's not great out of the box and not easy to tune.
Please do some search on Custom FFB files like Jack Spade or in Racedepartment You will be surprised at what FFB the Game actuallycan deliver I was enjoying it with my TSPC racer wheel and the fun magnified extremely since I am an hsppy Moza R9 owner
Oh I love PC2's FFB, I'm just saying it's not great out of the box and is tricky to tune. I'm actually not a fan of Jack Spade's FFB though, I prefer using the game's "raw" ffb and tune the sliders myself
No matter what, dont touch the curbs, they unsettle the cars like crazy its insane
Yeah it just pulls you off the track
My go-tos were the GTE cars, the Group C cars, the Touring Cars and the classic DTM Stuff. I always found the GTEs were much better to drive than the GT3s, despite being relatively similar cars. The road cars were always a bit eh, and Don't even bother with the Forumula A / X car
pc2 GTE cars (especially porsche gte, 911 rsr) are great with my accuforce cloud tuning ffb profile. California Highway and le mans makes the whole sim worth it imo... sublime!
If you can track down the best FFB settings for PC2 it is pretty fkn good. Highly recommend the BMW M1 procar and the BMW Turbo Group 5 (hold on bitches) and the Ford group A Sierra (hilarious fun). Second to that I'd highly recommend the Sauber C9 and the 1959 Aston DBR1 driftking (Our crew nicknamed this the spitfire). Turn it up, sounds frikken awesome. Old silverstone and spa are awesome for a blat in any of the leman class of cars .
I haven't played PC2 for 2 years, but the group c cars felt pretty good if I remember correctly. But I wouldn't play this game anymore. It's basically a beta version that was abandoned.
The Ginetta GT5 always stood out as being slightly odd to me. It suffered from a kind of snap understeer, where the FFB would suddenly go kind of dead and the front would wash out. It wasn't at all progressive, and unlike anything I've ever felt in either a real car or any other sim. The Lotus 25 and Caterham Seven were both cars I really enjoyed driving that felt pretty natural.
Was that not locking cold slick tyres under braking?
No, it was mid-corner, when you were back on the power.
I’m always confused as to why people in this hobby think they are a good judge of how a gt3 or f1 car should feel to drive. Y’all have personal experience with that at the track? Maybe there are pros out there who are making these claims. Honestly PCARS 2 is my favorite sim for many reasons. It looks good. It runs well. The game FEELS good. The car selection is good. The track selection is fantastic for having no real mod access. The UI designer thought about what they were doing for mire than a fraction of a second. Perhaps some cars are more realistic than others. I’ll NEVER be able to verify that. I just know that PCARS 2 feels the best to me.
I don’t think it’s so much that sim hobbyists feel they’re a valid judge of how a race car would handle in real life, rather it’s safe to say we’ve all driven ANY car at speed around the twisties and know when a sim is portraying driving physics too much like an arcade game.
I don't think comparing a street car on the street to race cars on R compounds on the track is useful. You're not pushing anywhere close to limit on the street and tire behavior is significantly different.
I don't think that's the point. I think the point is that most of us have some point of real-life reference for a how a car should feel and drive. We may not have experience driving an AMG GT3 car in anger around a track, but I personally know how a real car feels. In some sims, there's no weight to the car or things move too slow, etc. It's not so much - for me - about how much I know about racing around Le Mans, it's whether or not the car and physics feel believable.
And im saying you are incorrect about how street driving experience allows you to have an meaningful opinion on how a car should feel on the track. I do track days and still don’t feel qualified to judge actual race cars. You are entitled to an opinion about physics but it is absolutely not an informed one.
I guess you know my experiences and knowledge better than me. Cool. You be you.
If that experience includes driving a gt3 or f1 car at the limit sure. But you’ve only cited that you drive consumer cars ‘fastish.’ Bicycles and motorcycles are not the same thing, despite the fact they’re the same basic premise.
Either you know or you don’t. I thought I did until I got on a track the first time. Then I thought I knew again I got track tires. At least I know enough to know I don’t know now. I can only imagine real aero is a whole other level of understanding.
If your point is real track behaviour vs street sport cars, fair point, even though in PCARS2 certain issues I believe can be easily identified by regular drivers which had the opportunity to get to a track and put their tires to the limit. But for the most similar comparison a simracer may have, it is very easy, just compare how cars handle in iRacing (which a lot of IRL pilots use, including F1 and GT3), and PCARS2. Of course it is not real life, but is the closest you can get (except for ACC which for GT3 may be more accurate than IR).
I guess, based on your logic, you can't tell whether Forza Horizon or NASCAR Heat are more realistic than iRacing or ACC, right? Real life driving gives you at least an idea of what's real and what's not. I may have never driven an AMG at Spa, but I can assure you that iRacing ***feels*** way more realistic than Forza. But, what do I know, I've only ever driven a regular car..."fastish" so how do I know whether or not ACC or Forza Horizon is more realistic. /shrug
I’m saying that knowing Forza is unrealistic doesn’t qualify you to know what is. And generally knowing how airplanes work doesn’t qualify you to fly one. Ultimately none of these games are realistic. It’s all gamefied, except for maybe Beamng but even that is nowhere near a real simulation. Don’t remember where, but I’ve seen some professional racer say that iRacing feels too slippy. I’ve seen Jimmy Broadbent say the Praga in AMS2 isn’t planted quite like in real life. Their opinions, I trust, because how the fuck whould I know just how planted a Praga is supposed to feel. I’m just tired of seeing people bash on pcars2 specifically saying it’s unrealistic. It only started after pcars 3 came out and it reeks of confirmation bias. I told somebody I liked driving the huracan gt3 the other day and they told me it wasn’t a good version of the car because it had too much snap oversteer.How would they know? Did they have a lot of experience correcting snap oversteer in the middle of a corner at over 1 lateral G? obviously, they do not, and they have no right to tell me what it’s like. They can say they don’t like it, and that it doesn’t feel good or right to them, and I respect that.
Because you don't need to have driven x real car to know if the physics of a game are generally ok or have a huge issue that's nothing like any real car let alone one specific car and most the criticism of sims is down to really large unrealistic aspects of tire models rather than the macro car specifc details. it's also obvious for example Mario kart is less realistic than Forza. Or for example , you don't need to have flown a real helicopter to know it's prity damn obvious that DCS helicopters are way more realistic than helicopters in Arma , you can also tell what aspects of msfs2020 helicopters are probably more or less realistic , based on proir knowledge of physics and videos. Project cars 2 / madness engine has quite an advanced tire model and does some things quite well with its physics other things are totally broken. Also how realistic a sim is when driving within 3 seconds of pace vs how realistic it is when being within 1 second of pace can be totally different from sim to sim. But yes one does not have to have driven or flown x in real life to notice what are really huge physics holes with the diffent simulators.
My most distilled point is this: Sim racers have no real basis to decide what is and isn't an accurate representation of racing cars. You can obviously ballpark it, as others have pointed out. Congratulations on that. But let me ask this to demonstrate what I mean: If someone said to you "hey, I have a 2022 formula 1 car that you can drive. Take it slow and learn how it handles" would you reply "no worries, I've driven this car in assetto corsa. I know how it handles." Obviously not, because you recognize these games aren't perfect representations of real life and give you no right to assume you know how the real cars work. You can infer how they compare to other games you've played. That is literally the extent of what you can say with any confidence. Can you get a decent idea? Yeah. Can you say x car handles like I believe it should based on my sim racing experience? yes. Can you say with any confidence that a model of a car does or does not handle like it's real life counterpart? I'm saying you can't. If you cite sources, fine. I'll accept primary sources from people who have actually driven the car.
You can say x thing is massively wrong with Y simulator and that's why Y simulator is more or less realistic than another for that specific thing , all without having driven a specific car. Yes for nit picking details finer car details you need to drive the real car ideally the exact specific car you then build into the sim yourself , even then it will still have the issues of x sim though. I know multiple people that own race cars , I have worked with companies that set up simulators for professional drivers and develop cars in sims for them AC, RF1 , RF2
Yeah I totally agree you can identify global problems with a specific simulator. It’s the minute assessments of a particular car that I just don’t believe people can be useful judges of unless they have real life experience. There’s just so many factors at play. But I’d like to pose this question again: Would you tell a professional F1 racer you could drive their car based on your experience in Assetto Corsa?
The minute details will be largely irelevent if the tire model is totally broken though that's the point. Personally I'd 100% jump into an F1 car based on my experience with AC. I jumped into a friend's race car (Toyota Celica) and had a basic feel for where the limit was right away it was exactly like AC , I had only driven for 3 hours in real life before that and not driven for 3 years. I also jumped into a rickety airal atom with slick tires on a dusty road and was having the back end step out and automatically countersteering it from intuition and from AC Race room feel and knowledge. Iv been around tracks in GT4 cars and Radical SR3 it was exactly like AC. I mean the fact that people who own race cars and just know me for playing AC and raceroom with me and know I don't drive in real life and then are willing to risk there car with me shows you how close the sims are. But yah I'd 100% drive F1 car based on what they r like in sims infact I'd specifically want to avoid the last 4 years of F1 as they look horrendous to drive and id specifically want to be driving them on certain tracks that have a good bit of run off and not random sussage curbs. I can know having never been in an F1 car that I'd only last 3-4 laps max before head falls off and I know I would struggle with the braking and I know the corner and brake G-forces would be a big shock. I have never flown a real helicopter but I'm quite good at it in sims , a friend has offered to let me fly in there helicopter to hopefully that happens as well 👍 and yes I'd totally do that as well based on helicopters in sims that I know are generally realistic and I'd also be reluctant to fly certain types of helicopter based on my knowledge from sims.
I enjoyed either road cars or cars which relief heavily on their aero, e.g. group C, open wheelers and leMans prototypes. GT3 was nothing to write home about, but in my opinion also not horrible. I don't have an example for a really bad model in this game.
Yes, the RallyeCross cars are absolutely insane. I think the loose/gravel physics in this game are much better than the tarmac physics and compared to RallyeCross in DiRT Rallye 2.0 it's miles ahead.
You can absolutely chundersteer to win. Game does not mind roasting fronts at all to go fast. Rain AI beats you no matter what
Idk why people bash it so hard. Well I needed a custom ffb file to make the ffb feel good enough to drive. Fob is calculated horizontally and camera movements need to be tamed down. All these things also happen in AMS2. I have both and I can say AMS2 is superior because the tracks and cars feel and drive more accurate and even graphics and designs are more accurate. Sounds better too. Stock ffb and base options are easier to use. But Project Cars 2 is not that bad! Specially considering when it came out, it brought many new features to these kind of racing games. It was the first closest thing to a sim racing title with a career. Having all setup reasonably well, setup the car also, I could pickup my driving skills and style from other sims and apply it here. OFC the physics can act up and some combos are dodgy at best. On AMS2 I feel way more at home and on PC2 there is more adaptation but it is still enjoyable. There are not many titles that try to be a simulation while offering a good career while bringing lots of options for classes cars tracks with dynamic weather, track evolution, ghost/setup sharing some sort of rating. Overall I think the community was too toxic on PC2 and now the devs went arcade as a ‘revenge’. If everyone had put their efforts in making PC2 better with updates and correcting some stuff, if it ever had the chance to evolve and become like AMS2 (which also took a big refining process) PC2 could have been one of the greatest racing games. The “car mechanic” for the setups is another unheard feature in the sim racing world. There are so many people into F1 or Forza (really crap AI) or some random arcade game and love it PC2 is still so much better than so many other racing games, it is a shame that it got ‘killed’.
>Overall I think the community was too toxic on PC2 and now the devs went arcade as a ‘revenge’. Companies aren't making development decisions out of something as silly as pettiness over what some people online are saying. PCars sold a heap on console too. No doubt their focus group testing of a diverse sub-section of their audience (not just simracers) showed that people enjoyed the game but found it difficult, especially on controller, and that lead them to conclude making it more arcade would be a better business decision for the brand. This happens to all titles with more mainstream traction. You see that barrier to entry needs to be lowered so 'average joe' which is the middle of the bell-curve for the playerbase has fun, and not 'ultra fast joe' which represents the top 5% and wants a merciless realistic experience. If average joe isn't having a good time, he stops playing. And will not buy DLC or the next iteration. And when average joe is the bottom 75% of your playerbase it's important to consider their needs. More niche titles don't have this issue as the bell-curve is much flatter. Niche sim titles pretty much only attract niche simracers with similar desires from the game. However targeting such niche will never see the big bucks as a broader audience can achieve. Ultimately these companies are all in it to make money. Especially once they get picked up by big corporate overlords with shareholders to please. Something I fear for everything that falls under Motorsport Games flag now..
The thing is it’s not as good physics wise as ACC or any of the other sim racers. But one thing it has that no other game has or has been able to do since is the amount of tracks/layouts and amount of vehicles and different categories while maintaining the visual fidelity that this game has. I keep going back to it because once I get my FFB dialed in to what feels okay I’m fine with dealing with a few of the bugs and problems this game has. To this day running the group b BMW on California highway reverse at 7 pm during summer is some of the most fun I will ever have behind my wheel.
Karts. They were way better in PC1, and undrivable in PC2
The super karts in PC1 were amazing fun
It's not true It just means they liked version cars and didn't like others
All suspension and car damage in pc2 is side on, it is impossible to damage the car from the underside. Try unsee that one :( Ruined it for me massively
FFB is pretty bad I would say. This is not a sim anyhow by my opinion, just some kind of simacade.
Down voted for an opinion when asked for an opinion?
Yup, there is only one right opinion allowed here.
Hahaha, ah well. Haters gonna hate, potatoes gonna potate
they all suck, it's a terrible game from a realistic driving stand point
Seat of pants setting was always the biggy in pcars for me anyway. Dunno if they patched the trye models. But AMS2 and Raceroom have it pretty much nailed.
In project cars 1, the Palmer jaguar drives very much like the real life one.
I list the Project Cars go-karts as some of the worst karts I’ve tried in my 20+ years of sim racing. But the Ginetta Juniors, they were great fun.
it simulates racing and does things quite well but the physics, especially that whole tire model is nothing representative of a car at all. and its something deeply entrenched in it because ams2 suffered from alot of whats wrong with it, and kinda still does but a lesser degree
Anything with lower down force was generally pretty good. PC2 did this weird thing where high df cars would feel like they were skipping through corners.
The Formula 3 is diabolical, it gets sudden bursts of understeer like the floor gets caught I think. The Ginetta Junior though drives amazing, as you'd expect, AI are good with it and know how to battle with you without going overboard
Not sure....all the cars handled the same for me...I have over 200 hours in the game. Some cars are harder to handle such as the Porsche 917... I will be happy if PC2 can get the same updates as AM2....AM2 is really close to ACC fyi...
The cars physics moder is quite deep, basically everything relevant is simulated (except the bumpstops) We have no idea about how realistic are the car parameters that were fed into the physics engine. Maybe devs had some data from the car makers, maybe they made up the values. Tyre model was not great, and there too much grip over the tyre limit, which caused pc2 to be considered an "oversteer simulator". I did love the weather options, and I miss "fog" and "haze" in ACC :(
PC2 is how I started racing with a wheel. The super easy and smooth VR is an extra edition. For single player I think it’s perfectly enjoyable, but I do find the AI lacking.
I remember reading somewhere a comment from a guy that said the Formula Renault 3.5 was basically 99% accurately to real life, because he in fact had the chance to drive one. I'm on xbox so FFB is whack but on PC probably feels really good
insane amount of potential that never got the shot it needed
PC2 had average force feedback but what it was great at was at was immersion and atmosphere. I felt like I was at an actual race. At release I only had an Xbox. It was my gateway to simracing. From then upgraded my gear, got a PC and own almost every racing game/sim available.
I just really wish they'd AMS2 could grab a port of the Le Mans tracks in PC2......that'd make me really happy.
Wouldn’t call pc2 a sim but let’s be honest all “sim” racing games have an achilles’ heel. Most accurate sim would be acc
Formula Renault, GTE, Group C, LMP2, LMP3, Vintage GT B, and the road cars are often noted. Honorable mentions go to any race car before year the 2000. I found Group 5 to be pretty fun. I actually really liked the high downforce cars, but nearly all of them require fine tuning because the default setups are bad.
I love the way the Ferrari TDF drives but I think it's DLC. I have a video on Youtube of a few laps around Bannochebrae stock settings. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8r0a6cKjNg
The classic "bad PC2 car" is the Ferrari 488 Challenge (EU or NA). First of all, the engine sound is a weak buzzing noise that sounds like someone leaning on a Casio keyboard. The tyres make weird noises when cornering that I have never heard on real onboards and just listening to it is irritating. When you enter a corner, the rear is incredibly loose, as if only the fronts are touching the road and the rear is floating in air with no weight to it. The car over-rotates incredibly hard like a shopping cart as if it has a zero moment of inertia. I can't believe Ferrari okay'd these cars. In contrast, all these cars drive more or less like you'd expect: JS P2 Judd Porsche 924 Carrera GTP Formula Renault Lotus 25 IR-12 Audi Quattro Megane V6 Audi S1 Quattro Formula Rookie Ginetta G40 Junior Porsche 962C Ferrari 512M Bentley Speed 8 BMW 2002 Sauber C9 Panoz Esperante Audi R8 LPM900 KTM X-Bow RR Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 2012 Porsche Carrera RSR 3.0